


All About the Pretzels

by inheritancedrottningu



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inheritancedrottningu/pseuds/inheritancedrottningu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will be a collection of pure fluff stories. Contains Jack and Henry: warning, upcoming cuteness alert. Written for the prompt "pretzel thief! on the loose!" Will be multi-chap. Contains everyone on the team (season 7 or earlier).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. National Pretzel Day?

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks to my two best friends, Clare and E-J, for the prompts for this.
> 
> This is the first Criminal Minds fic I've ever posted, so please let me know what you think and review.
> 
> This will be a multi-chap, first up National Pretzel Day?

National Pretzel Day?

"Stupid piece of FBI funded crap! You'd think they could get better quality!" Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi cursed the vending machine.

"Dave, what's the matter?" SSA in Charge Aaron Hotchner asks him, seeing his frustration.

"Cheap ass paper pushers, that's what. This dodgy machine keeps spitting out pretzels when I tell it chocolate!" Rossi whines.

"So get something different," Hotch replies calmly.

"I tried that!" He argued, "It still spat out pretzels! And now I've got about half a dozen kilos of pretzels."

"Well, I guess you'll just have to survive with pretzels," Hotch reasons.

"But I don't want pretzels!" He stomped his foot in frustration.

"You sound just like Jack when he throws a tantrum," Hotch remarks, trying to hide his amusement. Under normal circumstances, being compared to a 6 year old would have pissed him off but not today.

"I don't care; I want chocolate!" He demands and, to emphasize his point, slams his hands against the vending machine. "Give me chocolate you dumb piece of s***."

Having seen enough, and realising that it wouldn't be long before his friend pulled his gun on the inanimate object (which would result in a lot of paperwork), Hotch intervened. "Alright, come back to my office – I believe I have a Hershey bar which was going to be a treat for Jack, but I guess you'll just owe him one…"

At the words 'Hershey bar' Dave's face perked up and he forgot his quandary of what to do to the machine.

"Here," he said holding out a bag of pretzels. "Give him these and tell him next time I see him I'll give him three Hershey bars."


	2. Pretzel Drama Continues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotch's office...

"Aaron, what the hell am I supposed to do with 5 bags of pretzels? I can't eat them all," he complains.

The two federal agents were sitting in Hotch's office, Rossi eating his, finally attained, chocolate bar and talking to a preoccupied Hotch who was ignoring him, instead doing paperwork.

"Give them to the team," Hotch replies distractedly, "Garcia would love you."

"Huh. That's a good idea. I'll get right on that," he says, getting up off the couch.

"Reid, Morgan!" he calls, walking out onto the platform beside the bullpen, "Hold up!"

The two guys who, by the looks of them, were about to head downstairs to the gym paused on their way out of the bullpen and looked up at him.

"What's up, Rossi?" SSA Derek Morgan asked.

"We're heading to the gym – would you like to accompany us?" Dr Spencer Reid asked a moment later.

"Nah, Reid, maybe another time. Just wanted to offer you each some pretzels," he replied, holding up his armful of pretzels.

"Uh… Rossi – is it national pretzel day or something? Why so many bags?"

"I'll take that as a yes," he said and threw a packet at Reid who, having not been prepared, failed to catch and one to Morgan who caught it no problem. "As to why – that's a long story."

Just then Garcia came into the bullpen with Jack and Henry in tow.

"Garcia! Perfect timing! Jack, your dad has a treat for you, and Henry I have a treat for you," he said.

"Ooh – what is it? What is it?" Henry bolted up the stairs as fast as his little legs could carry him.

Scooping the child up into his arms, Rossi handed him his bag of pretzels, "Here you go kiddo," he said.

"YUM!" Henry exclaimed, "What are they?"

Putting Henry down, Rossi laughed and patted his head, "You'll like them."

"C'mon Henry, let's go get my treat," Jack said, holding his hand out to the three-year-old boy.

After the two boys ran into Hotch's office, Garcia turned to him expectantly, "Well?" She asked, eyes narrowed, and arms crossed, looking at him expectantly.

" I've got one for you too," he said chuckling, dropping a packet down to her.

 


	3. The Case of the Missing Pants!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan and Reid after their session in the gym... team fluff...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously:
> 
> "Uh… Rossi – is it national pretzel day or something? Why so many bags?"
> 
> "I'll take that as a yes," he said and threw a packet at Reid who, having not been prepared, failed to catch and one to Morgan who caught it no problem. "As to why – that's a long story."
> 
> Later that day...

"Damn it!" Morgan swore.

"What's wrong?" Reid asked.

"I can't find my pants!"

"Where did you put them?"

"Right here, with my badge!"

"Are you sure that's where you put them?"

"Where else would I have put them, genius?!"

"Uh, well…I'm not really sure…"

"It was rhetorical, pretty boy."

"What about your go-bag?"

"We're on stand-down! I don't have my go bag!"

"Oh, right. Well, I have a spare pair of pants you can borrow,"

"You're like 5 sizes smaller than me!" Morgan sputtered, forced to choose between gym shorts (not really appropriate office wear!) or a too small pair of pants (he would look ridiculous)…

"Ok, thanks man," he conceded, having concluded logically that the too small pants were the better option.

He struggled to suppress a groan when Reid handed him a pair of pants which screamed 'geek' – he was never going to live this down, Garcia would have it all over the office in minutes of his walking into the bullpen. At least he could go home at lunch and change.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are all turning out shorter than I intended but trying to break up paragraphs on here is confusing me, so this was actually supposed to be chapter 2 not 3 (the earlier two were originally just the one, and the next chapter was originally part of this one)...


	4. Hilarity Ensues

 “Morgan, what on earth are you wearing?” Rossi asked, leaning against Emily’s desk.

“Whoa there, I know you like form fitting clothes but those look three sizes to small” Emily remarked as she walked from the little kitchen to her desk, holding two cups of coffee, one of which she handed to Rossi.

JJ, also carrying a mug of coffee and arriving just in time to hear Emily’s comment quickly realised what the fuss was about.

“You think I don’t realise that guys! They’re Reid’s! We were sparing and someone took my pants. These were my only option; I didn’t think my sweat soaked gym pants would meet the office dress code.”

“Hey! Where did my pretzels go?!” Reid, now at his desk, exclaimed.

“Huh, you know I never would have pinned you as the skin hugging clothes type, Morgan.” JJ teased.

Sputtering, “I’m not!”

Having received no response, Reid tried again.

“Morgan, have you seen my pretzels by any chance?” Reid asked his fellow profiler as he searched the draws of his desk, completely oblivious to what was going on around him.

“Seriously! You’re worried about pretzels?! What about my pants?!” Morgan replied, turning his attention back to the conversation at hand.

Sniggering JJ decided she couldn’t resist pouring a little fuel on the flame, “Anybody else think Garcia is going to want a record of this?” she hinted.

“Absolutely,” Rossi agreed, watching the exchange amusedly.

“Oh, yeah! This is too good to pass up” Emily said pulling out her phone and snapping a few pictures, making sure to get the 3 or so inches of ankle poking out.

“Oh no you don’t, princess!” Morgan said moving to tackle her for it.

“Oh, yes we do!” JJ said laughing, accepting the phone Emily was desperately thrusting to her.

“JJ I swear if you show anyone those photos I will make you pay!”

“Oh, I’m not going to show just _anyone,_ to be specific I’m going to send it to Garcia. That way she can send it to everyone in the building,” JJ said.

“Oh, and maybe she could put it in the slideshow of most embarrassing moments for the Christmas party!” Emily added, laughing.

 “While you’re at it, why don’t you make a calendar?” Rossi suggested, laughing.

“Oh jeez! Don’t encourage them, Rossi!” Morgan complained.

“Ooh, that’s a good idea, Rossi! We should also frame a copy and hang it in the bullpen!” JJ agreed excitedly.

Before Morgan could object, Reid stood up and announced, loudly, to the bullpen at large “Has ANYONE seen my pretzels?!”

The agents all paused, shocked by the sudden, and weird, change of subject.

Morgan, the first to regain his wits, sputtered “Reid! How can you be worried about pretzels! You’re supposed to be my wingman! We have bigger problems than a bag of missing pretzels! Like my pants! And the photos they just took! And the fact that the women we work with are sexual sadists’!”

Completely oblivious to Morgan’s response, Reid went on. “I know, right. But it’s scientifically impossible that they could have got up and walked away on their own…”

At this statement, Emily and JJ doubled up in laughter, and even Rossi couldn’t help laughing at them.

Before Morgan could respond, or the others could recover, they were interrupted by one very angry looking technical analyst, Penelope Garcia, and an army of nervous looking geekily dressed people.

“Alright, that’s it!” Garcia announced. “All of you put your hands in the air and don’t move!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Pretzel Thief! On The Loose!


	5. Pretzel Thief! On the Loose!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some of this doesn't make complete sense, namely their fingerprints not being on file already, what with them being in the FBI, so please just go along with any liberties I've taken in writing this...

_Previously:_

Before Morgan could respond, or the others could recover, they were interrupted by one very angry looking technical analyst, Penelope Garcia, and an army of nervous looking geekily dressed people.

“Alright, that’s it!” Garcia announced. “All of you put your hands in the air and don’t move!”

* * *

“Garcia, wha-“ Prentiss asked.

  “Nuh-unh Gumdrop,” Garcia cut her off. “I have had enough of you high and mighty FBI agents strutting round like you own the place, touching stuff that doesn’t belong to you, taking whatever you please! There will be no more of it! You will all submit you’re selves to my army of technical minions – err I mean friends –,” she corrected when they glanced at her, “who will take your fingerprints.”

“But –,” Reid began

“There will be no exceptions!” She ignored him.

Coming out of his office to see what the commotion was all about, Hotch asked, “What is going on here? Why is the entire forensics department in our bullpen?”

“You too, Hotchner; I don’t care if you’re the boss, you’re not glaring your way out of this, mister; in my books you’re all guilty until proven innocent!”

“Uh, Garcia? I believe the phrase is actually innocent until proven guilty according to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights Article 11 which states _that ‘Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until…’_ ” Reid trailed off nervously when she shot a glare at him.

“Shush, you. No more wasting time, I have a thief to find!”

“What on earth are you on, Baby Girl?”

“Nothing, so don’t you look at me like that Derek Morgan! Someone has stolen my pretzels and I intend to find the culprit!”

“By finger printing us?” JJ asked.

“If that’s what it takes. My friends here found two fingerprints at the scene of the crime!”

 “Hey, Garcia, while you’re at it do you think you could find you took my pretzels?”

“You’re pretzels are missing too?”

“Yes.”

“Well, people, it seems we have a pretzel thief on the loose among us! Technicians! Start fingerprinting!”

“What about Dr Reid?” One brave technician asked.

“Him too, I don’t trust him; he could just be claiming that in order to throw us off!”

Ink pads and print sheets in hand, the technicians slowly edged their way into the bull pen and, in pairs, approached the agents.

“Stop acting so scared, they all know better than to cross me. Isn’t that right?”

“Sure do. Oh well, may as well get this over with,” Rossi said, holding his hands out, palm down to the two technicians in front of him.

“Seriously Rossi? Her and Reid are both out of their minds – why the hell are you people so concerned about  a couple of lousy bags of pretzels?! You should be more concerned with the gym locker thief – my pants are still missing! I don’t see anyone being fingerprinted to find those.”

“Derek Morgan, tell me you did not just insult my pretzels?”

“Hey, he insulted mine too,” Reid reminded.

“Uhh…I ah…” Derek mumbled, ignoring the young doctor, his ego faltering under the analysts look.

“Well?” Garcia prompted, eyebrow raised, eyes narrowed.

“Now you’ve done it.” Rossi groaned.

“Oh come on! I’m sorry I insulted you’re pretzels Baby Girl, but can everyone drop this ridiculous behaviour? If it will make you feel better, I’ll go buy you a new packet now…”

“I don’t want a _new_ packet! I want my packet!” She argued, stomping her foot for further emphasise.


	6. Wanted: Two Little Munchkins

Garcia had only just returned to office after supervising the finger print collecting when one of the forensic technicians knocked on her door.

"What is it? Surely you couldn't have run everyone's prints in that time?" she asked.

"Um, no, turns out we didn't need to." He informed her, "It wasn't any of the agents we printed."

"Are you telling me that you have the culprit?" she asked suspiciously.

"No. No, we haven't," he replied.

Narrowing her eyes at him, she asked, "Then are you psychic?"

"Uh, no Mam?" he answered.

"Really? How else could you possibly know that it wasn't one of those agents out there?" she asked.

"Well, when we did the preliminary comparison we realised that the prints found in your office are too small to belong to any of the agents. It is more probable, especially given the traces of a sticky substance that we found laced with the prints, which I would hazard to guess is jelly or some other such thing, that you are looking for a child. It is therefore incredibly unlikely that we would get any hits even if we ran the prints…"the technician informed her, shrugging his shoulders helplessly.

"Quick! Eat all the evidence!" Jack told the smaller boy, grabbing some more pretzels.

The two boys were camped out in the conference room watching Despicable Me on the big screen, while their parents attended a meeting and the rest of the team kept an eye on them.

"But I'm full!" Henry complained, grabbing some more even as he said it.

"So am I, but if we don't keep eating they'll catch us red handed!" Jack said, peering through a crack in the blinds.

"Uh oh, they're coming this way!" Jack exclaimed, moving away from the window and back to the table.

"Quick, hide them!" Jack told Henry, as he grabbed an unopened bag and shoved it under the front of shirt.

Henry quickly followed suit.

The two began frantically shovelling the rest of the open packet into their mouths, chewing as fast as they could manage.

Not fast enough however, as their mouths were still full and their shirts bulging oddly when the door open and Garcia and the team came in, minus JJ and Hotch who were still in their meeting.

"Uh oh," Henry said around the food in his mouth.

"Uh oh, indeed, my little munchkins." Garcia said, mock scowl on her face.

"But they're so yummy, and they were just sitting there…" Henry explained.

"It's Uncle Rossi's fault, he gave us some!" Jack injected.

"Jeez, Rossi, it's all your fault teaching them bad habits," Morgan joked.

"Hey, I didn't know they'd turn into pretzel monsters!" Rossi defended.

"I can't believe you didn't let me join in!" Penelope exclaimed.

"Garcia! What about me?" Reid accused.

Ignoring him, Garcia continued "The pupils have turned on the teacher!"

"But, you were busy, so instead we save'ed you some Miss Penelope," Jack said, pulling the packet out from under his shirt and offering it to her timidly.

"Nice save Jackster," she said.

"And I'm the bad influence?" Rossi asked. "She just admitted she's training them!"

"They're my minions," Garcia said, accepting her pretzels from Jack.

"Like in the movie," Henry said, pointing to the screen.

"It seems the movie is a bad influence as well as these two then, hey Prentiss?" Morgan teased.

"Yeah, we'd better be more careful about what movies we leave them in here with, maybe we should leave them watching Dora the Explorer," Emily joked.

"No way!" Jack exclaimed.

"But that's for girls!" Henry complained.

"We promise we'll never, ever," Jack started.

"ever," Henry reiterated.

"do it again," Jack finished.

At the identical look of abject horror on the boys faces the two agents laughed, "Don't worry, we wouldn't do that to you," Morgan said.

"As an alternative, I'd like to throw the documentary channel into the mix. That would be very educational for them," Reid offered.

"Eww, he said educational," Garcia said feigning horror and stepping away from him as thought afraid he was contagious.

"I doubt they'd understand much at their ages," Prentiss replied to Reid.

"Yeah, not everyone is as smart as you, genius," Morgan joked.

"Of course they're not. If everyone was as smart as me, then I wouldn't be considered a genius, I would merely be average," Reid said, as though that were totally obvious.

"Oh, Reid, he was joking sweetie," Prentiss informed him.

Looking puzzled, Reid said, "I don't understand."

"Does this mean we can keep watching movies?" Henry asked, looking up at them with puppy dog eyes.

"We promise we'll be good," Jack added, smiling sweetly and flashing his dimples.

"Aw, who can resist such adorable boys?" Garcia said, looking to the others.

"They did promise to behave," Morgan added with a shrug.

"And it's not like we're their parents so as long as it's nothing inappropriate, who are we to say no?" Prentiss put in.

"Is that a yes?" Jack asked.

"Yes, that is a yes," Rossi answered.

"YAY!" the boys cried simultaneously.

 


End file.
